Tag Archives: Citizens Media Law Project

Instapaper is rapidly turning into one of my favourite new web apps. It’s ridiculously simple – it’s a way of creating bookmarks to articles you’d like to read later.

It works from a simple button in by browser bar. When I’m on a web page I want to look at later, I just click the button to save it.

Instead of putting a bookmark in your browser, it creates an entry on a web page for you, and keeps a list in chronological order of the articles you’ve marked to ‘read later’.

But the best thing about it is the list has an RSS feed. I’m using it to share with my colleagues things I’ve been reading and think are worth reading. They simply subscribe to the feed and see new additions I’ve made. Nifty, handy and most important, fast.

Can I Really Be Sued for My Opinion?Many bloggers seem either confused or ignorant of libel laws. Not surprising, since the medium has allowed millions of people to become publishers, many of whom have no idea about what is, and what isn’t, ok to publish.

“The guide is intended for use by citizen media creators with or without formal legal training, as well as others with an interest in these issues, and focuses on the wide range of legal issues online publishers are likely to face”

World Record Bloggers

The International Olympic Committee has finally decided to allow athletes to blog during the the Beijing Olympics.

Athletes have long demanded they be allowed to write their blogs….during the Games but the IOC was concerned these could potentially infringe on copyright agreements and private information. In a series of guidelines, the IOC said blogging would be allowed during the Beijing 2008 Olympics as long as individuals writing the journals keep within the IOC format. “The IOC considers blogging… as a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism,” the IOC said.

More in this story from Reuters, including IOC guidelines like “Blogs should also adhere to the Olympic spirit and be dignified and in good taste.”

I think that probably includes random poking of competitors on Facebook just before a big event.

Lunchtime is Primetime

More and more people are watching American network TV through video streams on their computer. And that’s leading to new primtime viewing in the middle of the day…

The most popular hours for watching network TV video online falls between noon and 2 p.m., and women are nearly twice as likely as men to be watching the video streams, according to a new type of study released Thursday by Nielsen Online.

Women between 18-34 accounted for 22% of the time spent watching video streams available on network TV sites like ABC.com and NBC.com in December, according to VideoCensus, a new syndicated online measurement service from Nielsen that combines research from panels of users and server-based measurement. Men ages 18-34 accounted for 12% of the online TV traffic, the study found.

The new daily morning news podcast service launched this week by the Guardian is the only commercial radio news alternative to the BBC, according to the paper’s head of audio.

Matt Wells said: “I thought it would be worth seeing if it would possible to do a good daily show to a good professional standards and put it out first thing in the morning.”

Wells said it was designed for “people who are otherwise dissatisfied with what they get in the morning.”

“There is no serious commercial news at that time in the morning – you’re stuck with the BBC…Since the demise of the Channel News morning report there is nothing at all. We thought it would be having a go ourselves.”